Help! My daughter fell asleep with gum in her mouth and it fell out of her mouth and wound up stuck in her hair and we can’t get it out. How do I get it out of her hair? I don’t want to have to cut her hair off to remove a couple areas of messy matted gum.

Put the scissors away! You don’t need to do anything that drastic to get the gum out of her hair. My sister was an avid gum chewer so my mother had to get gum out of her hair more than once. A few times it got in her hair precisely the same way your daughter got the gum in her hair. She always got it somewhere up around her face too, not down at the ends where it would have been easier to remove. Sometimes it was from bubble gum bubbles popping into her hair. Either way it made a knotted gooey mess in her hair. Mom had to find a way to remove it without losing whole sections of hair every time or having to cut it all off. There is a really simple and natural solution for removing gum from hair. Open you cupboard or refrigerator and take out the jar of peanut butter. If you don’t have any in the house, this is a good thing to keep on hand if this is a reoccurring problem with her. You put a small glob of peanut butter on you fingers and begin to work it into the area with the matted gum. Make sure the peanut butter penetrates the hair surrounding the gum and work it into the gum too if you can. Then with your fingers or a wide toothed comb begin to work the gum out of your daughter’s hair slowly. Take your time and be patient and it may not hurt at all to get it out. She may still lose a few hairs in the process and may still fuss having it removed but you won’t have to cut all her hair off to get the gum out. One other thing you might want to do it to check her each night and make sure she takes the gum out of her mouth before she falls asleep. I know that isn’t always easy with a devout gum chewer like my sister was but it sure beats fighting to remove it from her hair afterwards. It is also poses a possible choking hazard falling asleep with gum in her mouth. I hope this helps. Mama Nono

Share and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.